I’m Derek, a project manager and technology geek who lives and breaths general project management, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and technology. You can follow me on Twitter @derekhuether or if you really liked this article, subscribe to the RSS Feed. Over the course of the last 15 years, I've really expanded my personal brand. I started out as a full on Tech Geek. I launched my first startup in October of 1996. Yes, when the Pentium 133 was the latest thing. It was a good ride. Sure, the company died off after 10 years of business but I got my exit and I learned a lot. Two things I learned. One, I like to interact with people. Two, I don't like to interact with people when they don't want to interact with me. Let's not waste our time here, people. Who would you rather have a conversation with? [1] That guy or gal who walks around the room pushing his business card into everyone's face. Or [2], that guy or gal who you know has similar interests or passions as you.
After leaving the hardware-and-software-geek world for the application development world, I found a niche with project management. I loved the idea I could help solve a problem (deliver on time, on budget, within scope) when given the opportunity to do so. I could identify a need and provide a solution. The need to talk project management when dealing with Businesses, Government Agencies and Educational Institutions led me to get my PMP® Certification. The need to empower my development teams led me to get my Certified Scrum Master Certification. The need to optimize my work throughput led me to champion the use of a Personal Kanban.
All of these are all mere tools in my toolbox. But, when you put them all together, they start to describe my personal brand. I'm a guy who believes in transparency, technology, and information dissemination. I deliver products with passion, commitment, and skill.
So, what's the paradox? I've been writing The Critical Path for a while now. Since it's launch, I've grown more and more passionate about things other then just project management. I really have two options. [1] Launch another blog with my personal perspective and focus The Critical Path on my professional perspective. [2] Expand The Critical Path to include more about my other passions.
I love going on Twitter and finding a thousand personal brand experts or social media experts. (That's kind of a joke) But, what I believe in most is the wisdom of the crowd. I would love to see what you have to say. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below.